Paul Van Ness

An Eastman graduate who went on to the Hochschule für Musik in Munich and the Académie Maurice Ravel, Paul Van Ness studied with Eugene List, Orazio Frugoni, Ludwig Hoffman and Gaby Casadesus. He has taught at California State University, Los Angeles since 1976 as professor and chairman of its keyboard programme, and has played recitals in Vienna, Warsaw, Munich, Vicenza and Varna, with master classes in Vienna, Prague, Dresden and Varna. Plovdiv drew him back repeatedly: he first played there in the summer of 1994, Bach's D minor keyboard concerto with the city's youth orchestra, and returned with the same concerto to Balabanov's House in August 1995. In October 1999 he recorded Arensky's Piano Concerto in F minor with the Plovdiv Philharmonic under Nayden Todorov, and wrote the performance notes for the published score.